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With Understanding Comes Success

One of the reasons I strongly encourage horse owners to train
their own horses rather than ship them away to a professional
trainer is familiarity. Quite simply, an unfamiliar party will
not understand your horse nearly as well as you, and this
understanding of a horse is the backbone of any successful
training plan.

This is not to suggest that all horse trainers are clueless
individuals that bumble along hoping to do something right,
because most professional trainers will take the time to
understand a horse before ever thinking about saddling him and
training him to ride. But all too often an impatient or
inexperienced "trainer" will misread a horse's problem or
intention and react incorrectly due to his lack of understanding.
Too many of these incidents can prolong the training process
(thereby costing you money) and potentially mentally scar your
horse for life.

Far too many head-shy horses can be attributed to
inexperienced or abusive past trainers and/or owners who lacked
an understanding of the horse they were working with. Once a
horse has developed this mistrust or fear of people it can take a
good while to reassure the horse that another cuff is not waiting
around the corner. And who can blame the horse? If every past
exposure with a dog resulted in the dog biting you, chances are
you would be very wary, if not outright panicked, by future
exposures to canines.

To correct an improper action it is first important to
understand the motivation that lies behind it. For example, let's
say that you are training a young filly to walk alongside you to
your left. Suddenly without permission the filly slams against
your side, but being that she's still young it doesn't do much
more than get your attention. What would you do?

1. Ignore the behavior - no harm was done after all.

2. Jab your elbow into the filly's shoulder and growl at her
to remind her to respect your space.

3. Take a moment to detect the reason why the filly brushed
against you.

If you selected the first option, you chose wrong. Although
your heart is in the right place in your willingness to "write
off" a seemingly harmless action, eventually if you ignore these
things they can compound to worse problems. Your filly won't
always be so small and light!

If you selected the second option you might have reacted
correctly if the filly was gently asked to respect your space
previously and elected to ignore the request out of defiance. In
such a scenario you would need to reinforce your authority lest
she view herself as being the alpha leader amongst you.

But what if the filly stepped against you because the wind was
carrying along a plastic bag that startled her? In such a case if
you discipline your horse you do her a huge disservice because
she's not trying to be defiant or challenge your authority -
she's scared and she wanted your reassurance! If you start
cuffing your filly for violating your personal space she will be
like a deer caught in a car's headlights; the bag to her left and
the handler to her right are scaring her and she'll either bolt
or become paralyzed.

Had you understood the root of her concern you could have
forgiven the invasion of your space and instead showed your filly
the plastic bag was nothing to be concerned about. Such
reassurances would have put her mind at ease, allow her to regain
focus on the task at hand and hopefully become desensitized
towards future encounters with plastic bags.

A trainer that believed in the "one size fits all" philosophy
would probably have chosen option two in the above scenario since
at face value that would be the correct reaction, but without
understanding the horse or the motivation behind her action his
"correction" would have further compounded the problem. It is
essential a handler take the time to understand a horse's
behavior before attempting to correct it since one size most
definitely does not fit all. And who would better understand your
horse than you?

In addition the training process does not have to be the
stressful battle of wills that most of us initially believe it to
be. Taken slowly, both the horse and the owner can actually look
forward to advancing along the lesson plan. As the owner and
horse work together, each will develop an even better
understanding of the other's mannerisms, personality and
expectations? and with understanding comes success.

Jeffrey Rolo, owner of AlphaHorse and an experienced horse
trainer and breeder, is the author of the above article. You will
find many other informational articles dealing with horse
training and care as well as games and other horse fun on his
website: http://www.alphahorse.com

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